


Golden

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bucky Should Not Person Sleepy, Bucky is also a gift, Humor, I Don't Even Know, No Plot/Plotless, Online Dating, Random & Short, Sam Should Not Person Drunk, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Sam asks Bucky out via Facebook, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, kind of, so it counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10506912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: “Stevie, I agreed to go on a date last night with a virtual stranger because I was really sleep deprived and thought ‘why not?’ But in the harsh light of day it occurs to me that Sam Wilson might be a serial killer,” he says.Steve sighs, which was definitely a sign that he was being ridiculous because Steve had the patience of a saint. “Bucky, you worked for the CIA for twelve years, even if this Sam guy was a serial killer you were the best. I doubt he’d win the fight,” Steve points out.“Oh yeah,” Bucky says, “I forgot about that.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> This is based of my accepting a date earlier in the week while sleep deprived only to wake up and wonder what the shit I just did. Sometimes real life is the perfect prompt (and the events form there on out are obviously completely different). 
> 
> The 'say sorry for what you say when you are sleepy' line came from my lovely QPR GoodSourceofFibre.

Bucky stares at his phone screen and curses his past self for about the millionth time before he calls Steve. “Yeah, hello?” he says in way of a greeting. Bucky tries not to think about why his best friend sounded so flustered answering the phone so he could get his Best Friend Advicetm.

“Stevie, I agreed to go on a date last night with a virtual stranger because I was really sleep deprived and thought ‘why not?’ But in the harsh light of day it occurs to me that Sam Wilson might be a serial killer,” he says. He has no idea _why_ he would be worried about this Sam guy being a serial killer considering he was hardly a likely victim but his therapist did tell him he was often anxious about innocuous things.

Steve sighs, which was definitely a sign that he was being ridiculous because Steve had the patience of a saint. “Bucky, you worked for the CIA for twelve years, even if this Sam guy _was_ a serial killer you were the best. I doubt he’d win the fight,” Steve points out.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky says, “I forgot about that.” But then there was the whole problem of renouncing violence and going anti-war and all that other stuff so he’d still lose the fight if Sam-

“What’s the problem?” he hears Tony ask in the background and he focuses on that instead of thoughts he knows are irrational.

“Bucky agreed to a date while sleep deprived and now he’s worried about serial killers,” Steve says, making it sound way more absurd than it really was. Sam Wilson really could be a serial killer and Steve would feel like a real tit if Bucky turned up dead and carved like a Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

The phone shuffles a bit and he hears Tony sigh, which is actually somewhat relieving because he only does that when he understands where someone is coming from. Or he’s extremely annoyed, which is probably more likely considering he probably interrupted-

“Just cancel the date and tell him you’re sorry for what you said when you were sleepy,” Tony says, relieving Bucky’s worries unknowingly. Kind of considering he’d have to cancel the date, which he is not doing because if Sam really was a serial killer he’d _definitely_ kill Bucky for cancelling the date.

“That excuse does _not_ work,” Steve tells him in the background, sounding unimpressed. And excuse Tony has used, then. “But cancel the date if you don’t want to go,” Steve adds.

“I’m not cancelling and getting killed by a serial killer, Steve,” Bucky says. He had _some_ self-preservation, okay?

“Here, deal with your anxious friend,” Tony says a little distantly, obviously passing the phone back to Steve.

“Bucky,” Steve says patiently, “if you don’t want to go on the date, you should cancel it.”

“And get killed? No thanks,” Bucky says.

“Weren’t you just worried that you’d get killed _on_ the date?” Steve asks.

Tony sighs again and the shuffling indicates he’s taken the phone back, “would it make you feel better if I did some digital digging to figure out if you’re date was a serial killer or not?” he asks.

Bucky relaxes some and sits back in his seat, “actually, yeah. It would.”

“Awesome. So I’m going to get back to that blowjob I was just getting and I’ll update you on your date’s potential serial killing later. Bye!” he says and the line goes dead. Bucky wrinkles his nose at the phone and sends Steve a text telling him that the next time his boyfriend decided to disclose details of his sex life to Bucky he should not. They were basically _brothers_ , there were things Bucky never needed to know about Steve and his sex life was very high on that list.

*

Sam was a goddamn idiot because Bucky Barnes didn’t even know who he was. They had mutual Facebook friends and he had added Bucky a little over a year ago, it was hardly his fault that Sam ended up half in love with Bucky’s Facebook content. Jesus _Christ_ that was creepy as hell, and then to make matters worse he _asked him out_ while drunk and out with Clint, who of course encouraged the whole thing because it’s _Clint_.

“He probably thinks I’m a serial killer,” Sam says because even he was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with him. Who asked a guy out because their Facebook content was good? Serial killers.

Natasha snorts, “oh my god Wilson, he does _not_ think you’re serial killer, trust me.”

The last time he trusted her he almost got arrested for public indecency, but he decides not to remind her of that lest she get any more ideas. “Would you think I was a serial killer? Be honest,” he says.

“Well yeah, but I’m a woman. Men don’t worry about that shit, you’re fine,” she says, waving a hand dismissively.

“I’d think you were a serial killer,” Phil says entirely unhelpfully.

Natasha gives him a _look_ but he remains completely unrepentant. “Phil’s just paranoid, your Bucky does _not_ think you’re a serial killer,” Natasha assures him.

Sam was really starting to wonder if he needed some new friends because his current group was definitely lacking. Clint let him drunkenly ask a stranger out, Natasha regularly had him skirting the law, and Phil has officially convinced him that his crush of almost a year thought he was a serial killer.

“I’m a grown ass man and I’m acting like a fifteen year old girl,” he says more to himself than his companions.

“That’s probably for the best,” Natasha says, “grown men don’t talk about anything and teen girls are at least smart enough to know that a friend’s support is useful.”

That was… actually a good point, but still. “Should I like… try and start a conversation with him so he thinks I’m less creepy?” Sam asks.

“Oh yes, I can see how this will go now. ‘Hello fellow human, I’ve Facebook stalked you for over a year and asked you out on a drunken whim because you’re cute, and I like that you criticize the military industrial complex’. Perfect, he’ll certainly find you less creepy after that,” Phil says flippantly, offering a small smile that he reserved for when he thought he was being funny. He was _not_ being funny.

“Don’t you make me smack you, Coulson,” Natasha threatens. “Look Sam, you _know_ you have stuff in common with him because of his Facebook page so use it to your advantage. Then he’ll fall madly in love with you and you should never confess to Facebook stalking him because that is absolutely the work of a serial killer.”

“Natasha, I’m not a spy and I’m not going to use his Facebook content as an in to his life, that’s weird,” Sam says. He loved her but sometimes her inability to turn the spy thing off disturbed him.

“Weirder than Facebook stalking him for a year?” Phil says, giving him a doubtful look.

Sam gives him a _look_ and Natasha bursts out laughing. “Oh, I was wondering what I was going to do with a whole three weeks off that Fury forced me to take, but watching Sam fumble through a date in an attempt to find some kind of romantic connection is perfect,” she says.

“I agree. This is why we date Clint, he does lovely things like make our forced vacations fun for us,” Phil says lovingly to her.

“I hate all three of you,” Sam says very seriously.

*

By the time Sam gets to his dinner date he’s freaking out and ready to run to Germany for the rest of his life out of embarrassment. But then he’d stand Bucky up and that was just mean, so instead he decided to just go while kicking himself in the ass for not picking a movie date given that that would discourage talking in all forms. _Shit_.

When he gets to the restaurant Bucky is relatively easy to find given his pretty distinctive look. The waitress was obviously hitting on him too, and he didn’t look all that comfortable with it. Well, Sam thinks, at least he can White Knight him and hope that works out in his favor. “Uh, hey Bucky,” he says, drawing the attention towards him. Bucky looks relieved for a half a second before he seems to realize that Sam is his date. He totally knew Bucky thought he was a serial killer, goddamn Phil was right.

“Hey Sam, the person I am currently on a date with,” Bucky says, giving the waitress a pointed look. She turns pink and scuttles off with a quick apology.

“Pretty blunt, there,” Sam says, internally smacking himself for the comment when Bucky turns pink. “No worries, I don’t mind. Actually, I prefer it.” After all the crap he had to deal with in the military, all the secrecy, lies, and deceit that came with working with Clint, Phil, and Nat on covert missions that even most of the government didn’t know about it was tiring. He’d take blunt honestly over any _hint_ of a lie after all of that.

Bucky relaxes a little in his seat and sits back, “good, because basically everything that exits my mouth is a beacon of sin,” he says and immediately looks like he regrets it. Sam laughs though, used to the way Bucky thought from his Facebook updates. Which was _creepy_ but Bucky didn’t need to know about that.

“Better than lies,” Sam says and kicks himself because _who_ even responded like that? Serial killers!

“True. Sometimes I wish humans were butterflies so we wouldn’t be a violent and ultimately self-destructive species. And we could pollinate, which is awesome,” Bucky says. He cringes pretty hard at his own words but Sam figures that at least both of them were weird as hell instead of one of them.

“If we’re going to be bugs I would hands down rather be a praying mantis because one time I threw one at my grade school bully and it freaked him out bad enough that he left me alone ever since. Now I have a weird connection with the praying mantis,” he says. Unless they were flying at him, then he was not on board with respecting them and he smacked those suckers away but other than that.

Bucky laughs a little, seeming a little more relaxed than he had been before and Sam takes that as a victory.

*

God, if Bucky could have died of embarrassment he would have died several times _before_ his date, let alone in the first ten minutes. But Sam seems to roll with his weirdness and dishes out a little of his own so Bucky relaxes and gets to the important questions of the evening, like what Harry Potter house Sam was in and his position on the treatment of mental health in America. His answers were Hufflepuff and deplorable respectively, which was what Bucky wanted to hear.

It turned out that Sam had also spent time in the military and provably some other stuff he wasn’t mentioning- Bucky knew the signs- and after getting out he realized how much he hated it. Bucky was in pretty much the same boat, and both of them were still involved in mental health service activism if in totally different ways. Surprisingly they got along quite well and by the end of the night Bucky was mostly convinced Sam was not a serial killer, even if he shyly confessed that he had been Facebook stalking Bucky for a year after finding him through mutual friends. He said he told Bucky so he didn’t feel guilty and weird about it later, and to give Bucky an opportunity to run.

Bucky decides to stick around because he doubted he’d find anyone else in the world that would listen to their date call their words beacons of sin and stick around. He was curious.

*

“So it went well?” Natasha asks, leaning forward with her hands clasped together. Clint and Phil are flanking her and also leaning forward eagerly, waiting for his recap of the date.

Sam sort of felt like he was back working with Fury and giving his mission operatives his report but he ignores that. “Yeah it went well. He’s a little weirder in person than on the internet, which is like the reverse of what I thought it’d be like but that’s fine. I think he was mostly nervous.” He was also pretty sure Bucky had some kind of PTSD- he knew the signs- but he’s been dealing with vets who had it for years, and worked through his own PTSD. That wasn’t a problem to him.

“I’m assuming he _doesn’t_ think you’re a serial killer?” Phil says, smiling that ‘I’m so clever’ smile that tempts Sam to smack him.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think I’m a serial killer,” Sam says, deadpan.

“Too bad, you were our entertainment so I hope things go wrong quick,” Clint says. He yelps when Natasha stomps on his foot under the table, “what? I’m just being honest,” he says in his own defense.

“I need new friends,” Sam tells them.

*

One month and a _lot_ of Bucky wanting to sink into the floor and escape his corporeal form he sits in front of the T.V with Sam watching some random reality show they both knew was trash, but the kind of trash they were addicted to.

“I can’t believe I thought you were a serial killer when you first asked me out,” Bucky says, “you wouldn’t even hurt a fly.” Though he would throw a praying mantis at a bully. Which was hilarious, even Steve thought so.

“To be fair I definitely had a serial killer vibe,” Sam says.

“But you did save me from that waitress hitting on me,” Bucky points out. His hero, really, because he still mostly forgot that he was conventionally attractive with his high levels of anxiety and people hitting on him stressed him out.

“You didn’t run away even after I told you I basically stalked you for a year, which I’m grateful for, but also if I were your friend I would have told you to run because that’s weird as hell,” Sam says.

Bucky shrugs, “you out and out admitted it so I figured if you were really a creepy stalker you probably wouldn’t admit to it. Or call it stalking. And you only followed my page because we share opinions on the military and mental health, not because you decided I was your manic pixie dream guy.” Which has happened to him more than once. He didn’t need to be rescued or saved from his mental illness; some simple support was good enough. And Sam got that, which was why Bucky kept him around. It also meant he felt a lot less guilty calling Steve about his anxiety because sometimes he called Sam instead. Usually that resulted in him feeling guilty about bothering _two_ people instead of just one but that came later and he was working on it.

“Manic pixie dream guy? Really?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. It didn’t go well but now I have a lovely knight in shining armor that actually understands mental illness and is totally willing to throw a praying mantis at any bullies who bug me,” Bucky says, earning a sharp laugh from Sam.

“And I have a few new friends seems how mine suck,” Sam says. Bucky snorts at that, familiar with the story of how Clint talked Sam into asking him out just to make his lover’s vacation time interesting. Bucky introduced Sam to Steve and Tony awhile ago and he hit it off with both of them. Now he and Steve went running together, which was excellent for Tony and Bucky, who would both rather die than run. They agreed that the only time a person should run is if something was chasing them. And Sam and Tony were both good with science and technology, so they bonded over that, which meant Steve and Bucky didn’t have to try and keep up with Tony when he talked because they usually got lost quick and Rhodey wasn’t around to save them much.

“Hey, when I agreed to go on a date with you I called Steve freaking out and Tony decided to fill me in on some details of their sex life that my ears never wanted to hear so I get you,” Bucky says. Tony was _way_ too open about his sex life with Steve, but Bucky was _so_ looking forward to getting him back with details of his sex life with Sam. Then Steve can know the embarrassment of knowing about his brother’s sex life. Tony… well he was shameless, he wouldn’t give a damn. He’d probably ask questions, knowing him, which only made Bucky’s revenge sweeter come to think of it…

Sam laughs, “oh trust me, try spending a lot of time with a very open poly couple. I know some very intimate things about Clint, Nat, and Phil that I never needed to know. Like how flexible Phil is, and that was a visual demonstration. Compared to them Tony almost seems normal. _Almost_.” Steve, of course, actually _was_ normal thankfully. Bucky didn’t envy Sam for his position as Clint, Nat, and Phil’s fourth wheel but they were lovely people even if he was fairly certain all of them had spent the first time they met figuring out several ways to kill him and dispose of his body.

“Thank god for Steve for being an almost normal human being,” Bucky says, sighing in relief.

“Almost normal? Blonde and corn-fed is _one hundred percent_ normal,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow at Bucky.

“He would be if he wasn’t a freak like you who got up early to _run_ in the mornings. There isn’t even anything chasing you, why do that to yourself?” he asks.

“Health reasons,” Sam tells him.

“Fuck I’d rather be a human potato than a runner.”

“Congratulations on succeeding, then,” Sam says and Bucky makes a scandalized noise, offended that Sam would even say that to him. Sam only laughs though, which definitely offends Bucky even more. First off he was human _mashed potatoes_ , not just a regular potato thank Sam very much. He was _fancy_.


End file.
